Improved measures to help the self-employed are "complicated" says the Chancellor of the Exchequer

Improved measures to help self-employed workers affected by the coronavirus will not be announced just yet as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, says they are proving to be more complicated than measures put in place for employed workers.

It was announced that self-employed workers could apply for statutory sick pay - around £94 a week - to help with finances during the coronavirus pandemic, an amount which will leave most struggling to purchase essentials such as food and medicine.

The self-employed have since called for the same financial support offered to employed workers to be extended to them.

But Rishi Sunak, today said: "I will be making further announcements and progress on these measures.

"We've been looking at this in intense detail over the past week. We're in dialogue with the key stakeholder groups.

"There are genuine practical reasons why it is complicated to design an analogous scheme to the one we have for employed workers, but we absolutely understand the situation facing self-employed workers and we will find a way to support them, we just need to be confident that can be done in a way which is deliverable and fair to the majority of British workers."